Jim Voshell Tribute

Wednesday, May 29, 2024
5:00-8:00 PM
Manor Mill
2029 Monkton Rd
Monkton MD 21111

Contributions to the evening:
If you wish to bring finger food, please contact Linda at lapuzzo1@icloud.com. Food should be dropped off on second floor kitchen area. Wine or “Jack” are welcome but not expected.

About Jim

At the age of eighty, and after a remarkably full life, sixty-five years of which were spent in front of an easel, Jim left this world painting until his last few months, leaving the very legacy he worked so tirelessly to achieve. From the Eastern Shore of Maryland to the bustling streets of Baltimore and finally to the rolling hills of Parkton, Jim recognized the vibrancy of the life in his midst. He studied this world, photographed it and painted it with photo-realistic precision, devoting thousands of hours in his studios at Market Place near the harbor, Frederick Avenue in West Baltimore and The Barn in Northern Baltimore County. More than just studios, these were the gathering places at the heart of a rich and energized Maryland art scene where many of the regions most noteworthy artists found companionship and community in their shared love for what they helped each other and their audiences see.

The breadth of Jim’s influence is hard to measure. The hundreds of thousands of passers-by who looked up to see enormous murals such as “The Checker Players” or “Children at Play” witnessed the story of Baltimore painted on the surfaces of the same brick and mortar that Jim understood so well. Today and in the future his work remains under the stewardship of The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Leroy Merritt Center for the Art of Joseph Sheppard, The Washington County Museum of Fine Arts, and on the walls of countless collectors.

Last year, one of Jim’s final major works, a stunning watercolor of the many birds he watched visiting the Parkton farm feeder, was on display as part of The Baltimore Legends exhibit, a show featuring many of the regions most renowned artists, curated by Jim’s life partner, Lynne Jones, and hung at The Gallery at Manor Mill in Monkton, Maryland. So it is fitting that a celebration of Jim’s life will bring his many friends and his memory back to the Mill to honor Jim with stories, gratitude and a shot or two of Jack Daniels. THURSDAY, MAY 29TH, 5PM-8PM

In lieu of flowers please donate, in Jim's name, to My Neighbors Foundation, a non-profit that supports local students with art supplies (myneighborsfoundation.org).

“James W. Voshell was born and raised in rural, pre-gentrified town of St. Michael’s on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. His earliest memories are of the grain boats sailing the waterways bounding the farms he grew up on and the encouragement of a teacher in a two-room schoolhouse heated by a cast iron wood stove. Upon this lush, flat landscape of Talbot County, he learned early to see and love the natural world with an intensity for what lay within and beyond the Tucker Farm where his parents sharecropped as tenant farmers. Young Jim possessed a precocious eye for images and could render them to a scrap of paper or swath of oilcloth, delighting his family, his friends, and his teachers. He learned to love the attention this gained him, and this was almost certainly the experience that began shaping his belief in the importance of creating something of this world that might last beyond his lifetime.”

From James W. Voshell: His Life and Art